


Five times they said "No,"  aka 5 times they had great sex

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Dirty Talk, Food Kink, Light Bondage, M/M, Prostitution Roleplay, Sensory Deprivation, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:24:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Relationship fic about various slash pairings, Colby/Don, Colby/Charlie, Don/Ian, Charlie/Ian. How they end up moving from one relationship to another. </p><p>Written for kinkbingo. References to sex and various kinks, including bdsm. Also Bondage (Wrist/Ankle Restraints), Sensory Deprivation, Painplay, Food, Writing on the body, Prostitution Roleplay, Dirty Talk</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five times they said "No,"  aka 5 times they had great sex

1\. When Don and Colby saw each other at a bar that everyone knew was for pickups, there was no use pretending that they were there for any other reason. If they weren't on the same team at work, they could have made up some story about it being surveillance. But that was okay: even though Colby had only worked there for a few months, they knew each other well enough to be sure the other man could be trusted.

Don had wanted them just to each find their own hookups and never speak of it again; it was Colby who thought it was a good idea to sidle up to his boss and buy him a drink. And Don laughed when he realized his new agent had the balls to try and seduce him, and that, better still, he was doing a good job of it.

Colby had skills. Flirtation, a little cockiness about how he's great in bed, a little emotional stuff telling Don how much he trusted him and how it's never as good if you don't really trust the other person. And then a line about how all he was looking for was fun with someone who's of a like mind, someone who has a high-stress job, someone he wouldn't have to explain it to when they had a bad day - a get to the victim too late day, or a have to shoot the perp day. And, most importantly, he wanted someone who could really promise that there would be no strings attached.

Don laughed, though it was more of an exhale than a laugh, when he heard that last part. Was Colby really that good at reading him? Don was only at the bar that night because he decided that he might not ever be able to get attached so he might as well have something shallow.

Don made a mental note to give Colby more opportunities to use his people-reading skills at work. He also agreed to take Colby home with him.

He didn't regret it.

Colby was experienced, liked to push the envelope a little. Wanted to go on his knees for Don outside his house, rough and dirty on the back porch while Don nervously looked around to make sure his neighbors didn't wander within view. And when Don insisted they go inside, Colby waited for Don to be ready again and then asked to roleplay. Asked that Don screw him on the bathroom floor, Colby on his hands and knees, and then to leave $20 on the floor when he was done. Don was... hesitant. But Colby was insistent. And when he whispered how hot it would be in Don's ear, when he just kept repeating how the thought of Don treating him as a bit of trade, as some submissive fantasy of a prostitute, even, someone who was just eager to be owned for a little cash, Don didn't refuse him. Couldn't even if he wanted.

It was like that every time after, whenever they needed to blow off steam and there wasn't anyone else. Sometimes in a bed, sometimes not, usually rough and fast and desperate but occasionally slow and skillful and intense. But always, always, Don left cash for Colby, with Colby acting more than a little put out if he ever forgot.

Don never asked why - and he never figured out why it had to be $20 exactly - but then, it wasn't his right to ask. They weren't like that. There were never any strings, just as Colby promised. No feelings beyond friendship, not really. Don was surprised it worked.

But it did.

Until Colby turned out to be a different man than he said. Someone who couldn't be trusted.

It hit Don like a smack when he realized. What Colby had been doing.

Roleplaying as someone who feigns total devotion but will actually service anyone with the money.

They didn't have strings attached. So it couldn't really be called a breakup.

But when Colby returned to the team, when it was proven that, though he lied, he really was one of the good guys, they weren't together any more. Don did his best to treat him the same at work. But outside of work, Don was suddenly too busy to get a coffee or catch a movie or any other euphemism he and Colby used to use.

When Colby pressed it - when he said, "Are we going to get past this or not, and don't act like you don't know what I mean," - Don looked at him. He didn't want to say no, didn't really feel he had a right to say no. So he told Colby to meet him at his place.

As soon as they were in the bedroom, Don had him pushed up against the wall, the two men's teeth clanging together before Don worked his tongue into Colby's mouth. His fingers held onto Colby's hips, hard, bruising, and Colby could have resisted. But he didn't.

He continued to not resist Don. As Don deep throated him just enough to make him gag. Then fingered him dry before pushing in with just spit.

Colby took it. Liked it, it seemed. Liked that Don was hurting him, was enjoying the fact that Don was losing himself in anger, at the rage over Colby's lies, his betrayal, at playing him - all of them - for fools. And even though they never had any strings, this was the first time Don knew he was using Colby, that he was really and truly just fucking the fight out of Colby to make himself feel better.

Don kind of hated himself.

Before the burst of orgasm made him feel nothing but heat and tight and pleasure.

When they were done, Don told him to leave.

Colby looked surprised. But he said, "Where's my money?"

Don exhaled, and it was almost like a laugh. "Nah, not this time."

He said nothing as Colby gathered up his clothes and walked out.

Colby didn't ask him if he wanted coffee after that.

-

2\. Ian and Charlie got together when they could. Which, given Ian's travel, wasn't that often.

But they always enjoyed it. Ian pushed Charlie during their conversations and Charlie pushed back. Ian would suggest that if mathematics is knowledge about the world, then mathematics is knowledge about some pretty awful things. Charlie would argue that even when used to describe awful things, mathematics can be elegant and lovely.

For some reason, Ian liked it when he said the word, "elegant."

Charlie would ask him very direct questions about what it does to a person to track humans, to very consciously think of them as prey to hunt. He wouldn't shy away from criticism. Ian then asked him if science turns people into objects, gave some very embarrassing-to-science historical examples.

Charlie, despite his rather sheltered existence, wasn't a bit afraid of Ian. Even though he knew Ian's file, apparently. And Ian, somehow, wasn't at all cowed by Charlie's intellect, using his sureness in his own experiences to debate with him.

The sex was like that, too. Charlie excitedly getting an idea of what he wanted to try. Ian being fascinated but making sure he got to give the younger Eppes a few surprises too.

They drifted apart, eventually, after Charlie moved to someone else, probably someone in the Bureau since Charlie wouldn't say who. But they remained friends.

When Ian imagines their time together, he remembers the sex being sweet. Fast and playful but not too fast, and always with enough youthful energy for a repeat performance the same night.

He likes to think of one time, specifically. Charlie had found a marker near Ian's bed. It was the marker Ian used to cross out people who were dead from his collection of photos of people he wanted to find. Not all of them were killed by Ian, of course, but it was good to keep track. Charlie didn't know that when he started doodling on Ian's body. And Ian wasn't about to tell him.

Not doodling, explained Charlie, then, as he drew equations quickly all over, writing symbols and letters and numbers, even diagrams. Ian indulged this, like he indulged most of what Charlie went for, the younger man rushing in carelessly, like it would never occur to him that sudden excited movements were a bad idea around someone with Ian's experiences. He just trusted Ian's self-control, Ian guessed, or maybe he just had no idea.

Charlie wrote the mathematics of attraction on Ian's stomach - appropriate since Charlie always did love to kiss Ian's stomach. He diagrammed the physiological mechanisms of a heartbeat on Ian's chest, wrote the equation for an integral of a bicep-shaped curve on Ian's arm. Ian laughed, asked questions, intentionally smudged a few figures just to see that look of exasperation beneath the flop of the mathematician's curls.

But when Charlie handed him the marker, invited Ian to draw something on Charlie's body, something related to Ian's work, something Ian was passionate about, Ian politely declined.

The equations were fun. But he didn't want that marker's ink to touch Charlie. And he certainly wasn't about to diagram a line of sight for a shot onto Charlie's heart. Or write some piece of himself that he didn't need Charlie to know, much less to carry on his thin, sweet body.

Charlie looked disappointed. But he got over it. He always did when Ian acted strangely and wouldn't say why.

Ian missed him sometimes. The enthusiasm. The intelligence and creativity and joy that could be mistaken for naivety if you weren't paying attention.

He used a different marker for his photos after that day. The one Charlie used, he saved.

He didn't wish for him and Charlie to get back together. They both found someone else, someone better suited.

But it was nice sometimes to think about that night, the excitement in Charlie's eyes as his hand scrawled brilliance all over Ian's body. Nothing in their bed but bare bodies and full minds and the symbols of a heart, beating fast and strong and steady.

-

3\. When Colby and Charlie got together, Colby was a little hesitant.

More than a little, actually.

It was Don's little brother. Don, his boss. Don, his sort-of-kind-of ex. Whom he had just barely got to be friends with again, after their sort-of-kind-of breakup from their sort-of-kind-of relationship.

Don's little brother, whom he was insanely protective of.

Don was going to kill him if he ever found out.

Not that he'd blame him; Charlie was easy to be overprotective of. Not too young, but boyish, somehow. Not... innocent.

But something like it. Something that made Colby want to protect.

He didn't ask Charlie to pay him, to play john and trade with him. He didn't know at first whether that would scare Charlie - he wasn't Don, after all, and before he found otherwise he assumed Charlie was the less kinky Eppes - but more than that, it made him feel a little sick to his stomach to ask two brothers to fuck him the same way, to play the same game.

Plus, it made him wonder if he was a being the friend he should. Thinking about betraying Don was the least erotic thing Colby knew of. And viewing Charlie through Don's eyes - which is how the team had been introduced to him - didn't help either. And he also was careful not to ever even suggest to Charlie that he had ever been involved with Don. Charlie didn't need to know, Don wouldn't want him to know, and Colby knew it wasn't exactly in his own best interest to spill.

Luckily, Charlie was just as insistent - more so, even - that Don would never, ever find out about the two of them. He seemed to think telling Don would be the worst idea in the history of ideas, even worse than thinking that Liebniz' notation was superior, whatever that meant. It seemed like more than just standard "EW, my older brother doesn't need to know about my sex life" - it seemed like Charlie thought Don would be mad at Charlie, for getting involved with Don's agent, possibly. Colby didn't know exactly why, but he didn't try too hard to figure out the layers of complexities that were strung between Don and Charlie - he knew a losing tactic when he saw it.

Colby was relieved about Charlie's desire to be discreet but knew that as it grew more and more serious - and soon it was much, much more than a casual thing - Charlie might want to tell people. And he did - he told his father and Larry and Amita, and every single one of them agreed that there are some things Don might be better off not knowing.

And this unanimous decision was reached without any of them knowing about Colby's and Don's history.

Well, probably none. Alan always knew a lot more than he let on, but Colby tried not to think about it too often.

One thing Colby couldn't stop thinking about, however, was how sweet geeky Charlie could be such a dominant beast in the bedroom.

Charlie claimed that this was new to him, that none of his partners ever asked for this. But that once Colby asked, Charlie's imagination ran away with him.

He wanted to try everything. He wanted to know all there was to know about topping, read every book about it. Leaped in like it was a new project, a new world with a new set of axioms to explore.

And Charlie didn't scare easily. He figured as long as he followed proper safety protocols and kept the physics of the situation in mind, he could play as hard as he liked with Colby's body.

And his mind. Charlie liked to tease, after all.

And even though they tried new things all the time - even a couple of years into the relationship, Charlie still had new ideas - they frequently went back to Colby's favorite.

Wrists and ankles tied, spreading out Colby's body across the bed. A blindfold so that he couldn't see what Charlie was doing.

And then games. Textures, temperatures, soft touches, painful strokes of a cane across his thighs, silk across his balls, honey and then tongue on his feet, hot wax across his chest, ice on his dick, until Charlie would finally pull Colby so his knees bent up, so the restraints pulled tight, and Charlie could fuck him, could push into him as Colby struggled against the restraints, with Colby begging for him to go harder and Charlie obliging.

And then softness afterward. Sweetness.

And then, if he were lucky, another go.

Colby knew there was something fascinating about Charlie. He knew it from the time when they first met. But Colby didn't figure out at first how much went on beneath the surface. How fully the numbers ran through Charlie's blood, or how, instead of being lifeless symbols, the numbers were weapons, how they were tools and teeth and gripping hands, helping Charlie grab onto - and master - the world around him. The body beneath him, too.

Sometimes, Charlie would stop. He would slip off the blindfold and peer into Colby's eyes. "How are you doing, Colby? Do you want me to stop?"

Colby would always say no.

-  
4\. Ian was good in a crisis. A manhunt, a hostage situation, a firefight.

Apparently, he was good in a personal crisis too.

That's what Don said, anyway, when Ian and Don found themselves a little too drunk on bad Scotch during a night when they were supposed to be celebrating a job well done.

Don felt uncertain. Had for a while. Like he lost that sense of purpose he once had. Like he had doubts about himself, if he was doing good, if he was able to love, if he was looking for answers in the right way or places.

Ian had given up on these questions long ago. Choosing obsession for the job, with the occasional break for friendship or sex or even sporadic romance. But really, these were just vacations to help him get back his focus. TO better concentrate on those tasks he did to reprieve himself from the questions Don was asking.

But he could listen. He could respect the fact that Don was going to deal with his crisis without becoming like Ian, who thought more about how to be the best sniper, tracker, and retrieval specialist than he thought about anything else.

Even though being with him made him remember a time when he had the same questions. Strange that his youthful confusion should so closely mirror Don's mid-life crisis. Or whatever it was that Don was talking about.

But Ian listened. And he saw, and wasn't surprised at all, that Don's mind could go in fast circles and wide rays and deep swirls much like Charlie's could. Not about math. But about everything else.

But the explorations were more solemn, somehow. Clouds of thought leaning heavy on shoulders that Ian wished he could lighten. But he knew that that's not the way things worked. For men like them.

But he could help. He could have Don's back as he faced those hard questions, those ones that left you cold more often than not. Don would have to face them alone, eventually. But he could at least make Don feel that retreat was possible. That someone might cover him, might provide distraction.

That's how it always started with Ian. This is a distraction, he told himself, every time he found someone. Somehow, with some people, it ended up being more.

That night, he sucked whiskey of the neck of a man whose mind was elsewhere.

The next night, he watched, nearly breathless, as Don licked a stream of cold beer off Ian's stomach. All focus, holding Ian still with his hands, and it felt like perfect control even as his tongue was chaos on Ian's skin, as it stoked a fire stirring low in him, building to disorder.

After, Ian was gone for a while. Not because he wantd to be; Ian was just like that, Don knew. But Don opened his door and his arms to Ian the next time he was local, and every time after that. And it wasn't exactly easy - but they both were capable of pulling the other out of a spiral with some smirk that told of games to come. And they told each other things that they had never told anyone - things that only a man who worked alone or a man who needed total acquiescence from a team could understand without judgment - but they kept back a lot too. Kept to themselves many secrets. But that was okay. That was who they were. It didn't stop them from knowing each other, or enjoying each other. As often as possible.

It - whatever it was - became a pattern, and then it became an understanding. A recognition of each other, of the place in each other's lives that wasn't about being in the same room or the same state, but about that rock-hard sense of having someone as an anchor. The one you come home to, or the one who comes home to you.

They both knew it without saying it.

Once, as Ian left, he said, "Good luck with your questions."

Don smiled, sort of. "Thanks. You think I'll find satisfying answers?"

Ian answered, "No." But he said it gently, casually, a small smile perking his lips. As if there were nothing too terribly disappointing about it. As if he knew that Don would Don, with or without his answers, and that was a perfectly fine thing to be.

Don laughed and kissed him good bye. He didn't know why he felt better. He had no idea. But with all his reflection, he was beginning to get comfortable with accepting things he didn't understand.

5\. There was a gun. And cuffs. And a bunch of people trying to join them.

And somehow it didn't feel all that kinky.

When Ian and Colby were stuck together, they didn't have much to talk about. Ian didn't want to hear all about how he should give himself up, Colby didn't want to hear why Ian was totally justified.

Somehow, the conversation turned to the best sex they ever had. This led to a minor debate over whether one can compare different experiences, which led to a compromise in which they each listed their top five. In chronological order, not in the order of quality.

At some point, in their descriptions of their early great experiences, the conversation stopped being bragging and started being ...

Mutually beneficial.

It was Ian who noticed first, smirking at the bulge on Colby when Ian described a romp in the woods at a training camp he went to.

But it made Colby even more competitive, more determined to bring out enough details so that Ian's reaction would be as noticeable as his was.

The stories became very, very detailed.

So much so that they each briefly forgot the investigative instincts of the other man.

It was Colby who noticed that the man writing on Ian (and it was suspicious that Ian suddenly wouldn't say what was written) seemed to match Charlie's foreplay - intense concentration, but still so playful that it was impossible to refuse. As Ian talked, Colby's expression went from aroused to perplexed to realization.

And as soon as Colby knew, Ian knew that he knew. And Ian guessed right away: "You and Charlie, huh?"

Colby said nothing.

"Right," Ian said. "Are you still together?"

Colby nodded. He didn't seem that interested in talking about it more. He looked... a little jealous. Which Ian found kind of funny for some reason.

They continued with their stories, Ian moving on to his next one (making sure Colby would never get any clue that his later examples were all about Don). Then it was Colby's turn again. And this time, it was Ian who figured out Colby was talking about Don.

And as soon as Ian made a dissatisfied face, Colby knew.

"You have got to be kidding me," Colby groaned. "How - I mean - what - I mean, BOTH?"

"You've been with both, too!" Ian shot back.

"I work with them every day! You visit twice a year at most!"

"I guess I'm worth the wait," Ian grinned.

"Uncuff me and say that again."

They looked at each other for a beat and then burst out laughing.

"Do they know - that you and his brother used to-"

"No! You?"

"Fuck no."

"You think we'll ever find a time when it's right to tell them?"

A pause. Then, at once: "No."


End file.
